


the end and the beginning

by savingophelia (briennesbeauty)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, I am a sap, One Shot, and idc about the beards either, generic swan queen realisation fic, season six rewrite sort of?, this doesnt really have a solid setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 08:18:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15481554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briennesbeauty/pseuds/savingophelia
Summary: a battle and a prophecy brought them together; when it seems like a battle and a prophecy might tear them apart, realisations are made and words that have gone unsaid for six years might just come spilling out.or, emma and regina’s great confession of love and first night together happens before, during and after a big fight. one-shot.





	the end and the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> slightly au in that emma stayed in character for the whole series, and the final battle is just a very vague bother that you can see as the black fairy or as a giant purple jellybean for all it matters. i wrote this for feelings, not plot. 
> 
> also, i was going to deal with killian but apparently he and emma have no actual relationship anyway and also who cares. maybe he’s emma’s lesbro??
> 
> anyway this is an emotional mess and so am i

The Charming's apartment was abuzz with energy when Emma headed down the stairs, still doing up her belt. An hour ago, she'd been in her pyjamas. _Trust me to pick a final battle that starts in the middle of the night_ Emma thought. 

Already, she could see her mom was pacing around the living room, loading up a quiver with arrows and talking on the phone to the Blue Fairy, making sure everything was alright with Neal. They'd thought it best to leave him with the fairies until the fight was over. Emma wasn't sure that's what she would have done, but then again. She liked to think she wouldn't have put her baby in a magic closet either.  
Henry was sitting on the sofa, worry creasing his sleepy-soft face, talking to David across the room. 

“We need to get out there as soon as possible.” Regina spun around on her heels when she saw Emma come down the stairs, picking up her coat. “The sooner we get this over and done with, the better.”

“No,” Emma said. 

“What?” Regina frowned up at her across the room, confused. “You don’t honestly think it’s better to wait –”

“No, I don’t.” Emma agreed. “We’re not going to wait. _We_ –” She glanced at her parents, then back at the brunette. “are getting this done. _You_ are staying here.” 

Regina laughed. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. But Emma was just looking at her, golden green eyes unblinking. She looked like a hero in a storybook. Regina glanced back at David and Mary Margaret, and her brow furrowed when she realised they were deadly serious too, and avoiding her eye.

She shook her head, mouth open, and looked back up at Emma. “You can’t be serious...”

Emma folded her lips tight and didn’t say anything. She didn’t trust herself to open her mouth – she had no idea what kind of junk would come pouring out. 

“Emma,” Regina’s throat was tight with fury. “Don’t be absurd. I’m the strongest magic we’ve got. You need me.”

“You’re Henry’s mom,” Emma told her. “And he needs you.”

Regina just shook her head. She couldn’t believe her ears. After everything they’d been through, after six years... And Emma would dare to tell her _no?_ Well, she could see how that would work out for her. 

“Look,” Emma swallowed. She suddenly felt very tired, and the near-constant pain in her chest cut deeper. Her eyes found the mayor’s, willing her to just understand the way she always did. “Can we talk, for a second? Just us.”

Regina rolled her eyes, but she dropped her coat and stalked after Emma to the open-brick wall at the far side of Mary Margaret’s apartment. 

Her cheeks were warm as she stood in front of the saviour, looking up at her and trying to ignore the eyes on her. When Emma pulled her aside, Killian jogged upstairs to get more weapons, and David took Henry aside to explain, but she was still faintly aware of Mary Margaret watching in her peripheral vision. 

And suddenly there was a lump in her throat, making it hard to breathe. Regina swallowed hard around it. 

“You’re not going to convince me to stay, Emma.” The former queen warned her. “No matter what you say.”

Emma smiled, a sad, slow sort of smile. “I thought you might say that.”

Regina shook her head slightly, looking at the brick wall for a second just to make it easier. If anything, when she met Emma’s eyes it was harder. “You may be the Saviour, but this is my fight too.”

“But it doesn’t have to be. You’ve had more than your share of fights.” Emma said. She wanted to go into Regina’s past and fight all those fights for her. She wanted to be the reason Regina never had to fight anything again.

“That’s not you decision to make,” She argued. 

“Regina, you’re staying.” Emma swore. “Look, I know things haven’t always been steady with us. We’ve argued, we’ve fallen out. But trust me, I have not _fought_ against you for nearly six years. I will fight you on this now.”

“I thought I’d had more than my share of fights,” Regina replied flatly. 

Emma just looked at her. 

Regina swore she felt her knees buckle. 

It was pathetic. Emma just looked at her, and it stole the breath from her lungs. Emma _just looking at her_ was enough to melt the skin off her bones. Emma looked at her like her eyes could bore right through the core of her.

“Please, Regina,” Emma said, and she looked so tired. “I’ve told you before. You’ve worked too hard.”

 _No_ , Regina thought, _you have._

Regina never cared about herself. She’d never even liked herself. Emma was the one who had fought for her happiness. Emma was the one who broke down doors and drew swords and plunged through the dark to make her happy. _I never even asked her_. 

Her feelings were burning too hot right now, so she tried to swallow them down. Regina took a breath and shook her head. She forced her voice to be level and reasonable. “And I’ve told you. I am not letting you sacrifice yourself for – for anyone in this town.”

Emma fought the urge to shake her. Why did she always make this so hard? She sighed, and for one scary second she thought she was going to cry. 

Instead, Emma took the brunette’s hand and looked into her dark eyes. “You have to stay for your kid.”

Her voice was barely a whisper. Any louder, and it would have broken. 

Regina bit her lip and glanced across the room, to where Henry was sat on the couch with David, talking in soft voices. He looked young, and scared, and his brown hair was flopping all over the place from bed. He kept blinking. Beneath his plaid pyjama pants, he was wearing mismatched socks. _Star Wars_ and stripes. 

She swallowed around the lump in her throat and looked back up at Emma. The Saviour was taller than her, and she kept running her hand through her messy blonde hair. Her face was like some statue of a hero, but her green eyes were restless and alive with light. 

If ever Regina understood her mother, ripping out her own heart rather than feel it all, it was then. 

“ _Our_ kid.” It was all Regina managed to say out loud. 

“Our kid.” The smallest smile crept over Emma’s lips. She looked over at their son for a moment, and then the woman who had raised him and made him theirs. “He was yours first.”

Upstairs, Regina could hear Killian’s footsteps, and something metallic clinking. _Weapons, probably_. She fought the urge to hurl a fireball at the open-brick wall beside them just to feel useful. Just to get it out of her. Then she sighed and all the resistance rushed out. 

Almost fearfully, with a strange new warmth in her cheeks, Regina looked back up into Emma Swan’s eyes and nodded. 

“I’ll stay with Henry.” The brunette agreed slowly. Her dark eyes were bright and cutting as a blade. “Unless _you_ need me more.”

Emma grinned, a tiny, lopsided, terrified little grin. “Come on,” She shrugged. “After everything this family’s been through, I think we’ll be able to handle it.”

They were so close, Regina could see every one of her eyelashes. She could see the thin pale freckles on her nose. The last time they’d been this close, they’d probably been trying to kill each other. 

Regina tried to smile. 

“Be safe,” She told her. “ _Win this_.” 

Emma’s green eyes were distant. She wasn’t thinking about winning in terms of coming home. Sure, she could come home, fix her wounds, marry Killian and go to work with her dad every day. She could teach Henry to fish and savour every one of Regina’s smiles from afar. 

But this time, none of that seemed to matter. Winning this time just meant there was a home, a Henry, a Regina, a mom and dad and everyone else. Winning was them being ok. _No matter what happens to me. No matter what I have to do._

But she could hardly say that out loud, with the other woman looking at her like that. Emma smiled. 

“You know me, Regina,” She shrugged one shoulder. “I’m the Saviour.”

Regina nodded, and it felt like a surrender. 

On the couch, David and Henry were getting up and walking round to the kitchen, and the back of the cupboard door where the prince’s leather jacket hung. They had to leave soon, she realised. _Now._

Regina could feel so many words piled up in the back of her throat, but she couldn’t seem to make herself speak. And thank God really, because she had no idea what ridiculous things she’d be saying. She was certain she’d thank Emma for saving her life. 

Not just today – and not just from the fire, the mob, the wraith, the crystal, the darkness, the thrown swords, the villains and the enemies and curses – but practically every day. 

Because somewhere between the porch and this living room, Emma Swan had started rescuing her and never stopped. Which made her feel the weaker and happier than she ever thought possible.

 _An Evil Queen’s Saviour is the one who defeats her_ , Regina reminded herself, as she had done a thousand times before. _Villains don’t get happy endings_. 

She looked up into green eyes. 

You saved my life, she tried to tell her. Not forever, not for good. Probably just temporarily. But you saved my life, and now I’m yours. _The woman that I am right now is yours_. Always. 

“Ready to go, love?”

Killian’s voice snapped them both out of it. 

Emma glanced at him sharply, and nodded. For a second, she’d almost thought... Her cheeks flushed pink and she nodded again. “Sure. Just give me a sec to say goodbye to Henry?”

“I’ll wait in the hallway,” He announced, and jerked his head for David to follow him. 

On his way out, the former prince put a warm hand on Regina’s shoulder and just looked at her for a second. Then, a thin, genuine smile touched his face. “We’ll be ok, Regina,” He told her. “Look after Henry.”

Regina breathed in through her nose and nodded. She was grateful, but she still couldn’t trust herself to speak. Her heart was pounding. 

She was sure her cheeks were flushed with warmth. She felt as though she’d been caught in the act, though of what she couldn’t say.  
Once the men had left, Emma had already folded Henry into a tight hug. He was tall enough now she had to tilt her head back to tuck her chin into his brown hair. 

Regina was so lost in watching them she didn’t even realise Snow was right in front of her. 

“Don’t worry about us,” Mary Margaret told her, with a wide smile all over her face. Her eyes seemed to be studying her former enemy, but they were soft and gentle. She paused, mouth open. She already had her coat on. “Don’t worry about her.”

Regina swallowed and shook her head, coming back to her senses. “I’m not.”

Snow’s eyes widened and she tilted her head, as if to say _seriously?_

“As much as it pains me to admit it, I do have faith in you.” Regina told her. Her voice sounded strange and fake even in her own ears. “In all of you.” 

Snow looked at her for what seemed like a long time, and then hesitantly lifted a hand to touch Regina’s cheek, right under the dark fall of her hair. Her eyes met hers, and Regina thought that it was odd how her former step-daughter’s hand could feel so _motherly_ on her face. 

“I promise you, Regina,” She whispered. “I’m not letting any of our family go down without a fight.” 

Then she dropped her hand, smiled a fresh smile and slipped out the door after her husband. 

Which left just the three of them. (The three it always left.) 

Emma gave Henry a final squeeze and then let him go. She ruffled his hair. She tried not to think about him. The last few weeks, thinking about him was what made her want to scream and rage and punch shit until the situation bent beneath her will. She’d said everything she wanted to say, and after all... 

She smiled over at Regina. Regina was the one thought that made all those other feelings soften and turn to relief. Regina was the thing that made all that bearable. 

“See you round, Madame Mayor,” Emma managed, and their eyes caught briefly before she ran out the door, sword in hand. 

Not running after her was the hardest thing Regina had ever done. 

 

-

 

They were losing. 

Or maybe they were winning. 

Emma didn’t know. All Emma knew was that she had a bloody gash on her arm, a tear in her jeans, her sword was abandoned on the floor behind the monster, and her magic was running out of steam. She’d lost track of her parents. Last time she’d seen them, they were alive, and nearby. 

She was breathless and faltering. Everything hurt. How long they’d been battling she couldn’t say. Her world had shrunk to a street, a tearing pain, and the scratchy ache of her strained magic. 

For a second, the white glow of magic around her hands flickered and died, and Emma was certain this was it. She groaned through her teeth, forcing it back, forcing the connection, thinking of the people she was protecting. She could do it. She could get rid of this fight, even if she died doing it. And all she could think was, _well, I did my best_ , and _Henry’s safe_ , and _Regina’s safe_ and then... 

“Hey!” A familiar voice shouted from behind her. “Over here!”

And when the scalding heat of a fireball shot right over her shoulder, Emma whirled around in shock, not once breaking the faltering magic she was wielding. 

Without another word, Regina strode down the street, hurling fire, sparking purple magic, breeze fluttering through her dark hair. She looked like a goddess. An avenging angel. A stupid, reckless, impossible woman who made Emma’s heart leap with hope and clench with fear in the same instant, as she reached her side. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Emma shouted, her voice strained with effort. “I told you to stay in the house!”

Regina just laughed, a wild, terrified, breathless laugh. It was the best sound Emma had ever heard. “When have I ever done what you told me, Saviour?” 

Emma laughed, and doubled her efforts. Together, they let the blinding force of their combined magic rip through the night air and fight, fight, _fight_ for their family, one last time. 

“Together,” Regina said, jaw clenched with pain and effort. 

Emma looked at her, and nodded. “Together.”

 

-

 

“Is it too much to tell you _I will always find you?_ ” David asked when it was done, with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. Her mom laughed and leaned up on her toes to kiss him.

They were standing in the empty street, her parents and Regina and Henry and everyone. It was done. After the former queen had appeared like that, of course it was done.

Emma watched her parents, a strange feeling in her chest. It always reassured her seeing how completely, bewilderingly in love her parents were. After all these years, they were still Snow White and Prince Charming. 

She turned away to give them some privacy, sword hanging loosely from her hand. She looked around, to where Regina stood with her arm around their son, talking softly to him. 

And suddenly Emma was thinking of all the different roads that had led to the same person, in the end. 

In a hundred realms, under a dozen curses, in different versions of reality. Through the past and the future, lands created by wishes and whims and spiteful authors. In Neverland, in Camelot, in the Underworld. 

Without fail, there she was. The one person Emma had always found, and who had found her. There she was, a queen Emma had only heard stories about, in a forest created by a wish. There she was, a lost bandit standing with their son in the author’s alternate world. In a ballroom, in the past. In a diner, waiting, after the breaking of a curse and a cup. There she was, standing on her front porch under a sky heavy with stars, on a lonely birthday. 

There she was, across the street. 

“Emma?” 

Her mom’s voice broke her out of her reverie. 

“Huh?” Emma spun around. 

Mary Margaret smiled. She had her arm slung around David, and his arm was wrapped around her. They looked tired, and happy, they way they always did after they won a big fight. And there was a glint in her mom’s eye, almost knowing, smug... 

“We’re going to head to Granny’s.” Her mom told her. “Get something to eat, then turn in. We can celebrate when we’ve slept.”

Emma smiled. “You got that right.”

Regina and Henry had drifted over, and Henry was looking over at his grandparents. “Can I go too?” He asked. He looked younger than usual, messy haired, a sweatshirt thrown over his pyjamas, but his voice was rough and breaking. “I mean, I know it’s the middle of the night and all but –”

“I think that would be okay,” Regina smiled, squeezing him closer with the arm wrapped around his shoulders. She looked up at Emma, brown eyes big and questioning. 

Emma nodded, smiling around the lump in her throat. “Sure, kid.”

“Do you want us to have him for the night?” Mary Margaret asked softly. 

Emma and Regina exchanged a look. 

“Whatever’s easier for you, Henry.” Regina told him. 

Henry smiled, that sleepy, grateful, lopsided grin she loved so much. “Thanks moms.” He said, and then turned around into Regina’s chest, wrapping her in a hug. 

He motioned for Emma to join in, and the blonde paused for an awkward second before stepping up behind her kid and squeezing her arms around him. Her hand brushed Regina’s on their son’s sleeve. Her fingers were warm and reassuring. 

“I knew you’d do it, Ma,” Henry whispered, and then the three of them broke apart and he jogged over to Snow and David. “You should get some sleep!” he called back, and a faint smile broke over Emma’s lips. 

And then they were walking off to the distant warm lights of the diner, and Emma and Regina were once again, left alone in the road, six years and a few metres between them. A heavy silence settled like dust in the dimly-lit street. 

Emma braved meeting her eyes. Her smile was soft and unsure. “You didn’t want a midnight grilled cheese?”

Regina smiled gently and shook her head. “I... I think Henry’s right. I need to get some sleep.”

“Don’t we all,” Emma studied the brunette’s features, somehow softened by relief and the warm orange glow of the streetlamps. She paused, not quite wanting to break the silence, not quite wanting Regina to leave. “Sometimes I feel like I haven’t slept for years. Since I first got to this place.”

“Sometimes I feel like _I_ haven’t slept since you first got here,” Regina joked lightly. 

Emma looked down at the tarmac under her boots. She felt strange, more present than she had for a long time. Like she could feel all her organs aching inside her. “We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?”

Regina nodded, heart suddenly speeding up, stomach suddenly fluttering. Above, a streetlamp flickered. She looked up at the Saviour. “Indeed we have, Miss Swan.”

The old nickname brought a smile to Emma’s lips. “If you’d told me back then – everything we’d do together – I don't know if I’d have believed you.”

“If you’d told me back then everything you’d do for me,” Regina breathed in carefully. “I don’t think I could have.”

Emma’s eyebrows drew together slightly. “What do you –”

“Come on,” Regina’s beautiful face broke into a small, incredulous laugh. “You’ve saved my life more times than you can possibly know.” There was a lump in her throat. All of a sudden, it was hard to speak. She couldn’t believe she was really saying these things. “I never could ask why.”

“Why...?” Emma breathed, almost scared to meet the other woman’s eyes. Regina was like the sun. Bright and beautiful and dangerous to look at directly. “Why I saved you. I just did. I just do. I mean, you’d do the same for me.” 

They were so close. Closer than they’d ever been. 

Often, when she was around Regina, Emma felt as if she was on the edge of something. Now more than ever, she was burning with the urge to just throw herself right out into the unknown. 

Regina took a few slow steps towards her. He boots clicked on the tarmac. Her hair shone in the lamplight. She smelled of Regina, of perfume and apples and magic. The brunette lifted her eyes to Emma’s, and they were shining and scared. 

“I never said thank you.” She whispered. Her voice was thick with emotion. “For everything. You don’t know – you can’t know how grateful I am to you, Emma. You don’t know how much you’ve done for me.”

Emma made a noise in the back of her throat, half-laugh, half-sob. “Regina...”

Regina took both of her hands in her own and squeezed. Her smile was brimming with something too hot to touch, too deep to think about. 

Emma looked down at their joined hands. Regina’s skin was warmer and softer than she could ever have imagined. She brushed her thumb over the other woman’s palm and shivered. 

“I think I need to tell you now, Regina,” She said. Or maybe she didn’t. Her voice was barely a whisper. The words were buried so deep in her they didn’t know how to come out. “I think I owe you that after everything we’ve been through.”

Regina’s brown eyes lifted very cautiously to hers. “Tell me...”

“There’s a reason I made you stay tonight.” Emma swallowed hard. “There’s a reason I sacrificed my soul for you without a second thought. There’s a reason I would do again, a thousand times over. There’s a reason that you’re always there in whatever fucked up realm we end up, Regina...” 

She gave a shaky smile. 

“I don’t know how to do this,” Emma confessed, and her whispering voice was breaking. “I don’t know how to tell you...”

Regina’s heart was lost somewhere in her stomach. She could feel it, black and red and frantic, like it was trying to beat itself out of her body. Like it was trying to get the saviour’s attention. Like it was trying to get to her. 

“You don’t have to,” Regina finally found her voice. It was small as a sigh. The words bled out of her. “I know.”

Emma was just looking at her again. 

Emma’s eyes were green enough to turn carbon dioxide into oxygen. 

“You know,” Emma breathed, almost choking on the two gentle words. She half sobbed and half laughed. She shook her head. “Of course you do.”

And then she lifted her head, and the brunette was closer than she’d ever been. 

It was like all those times before. Every time Emma looked at her, she was looking back at her. Now Emma thought about kissing her, her eyes were already closed. 

Emma leant in, tilted her head, and pressed her lips gently and firmly against hers. For a moment that was all, until Regina leaned up into it, and her lips opened, and her soft hands shakily found Emma’s face. And then they were kissing, kissing, _kissing_. 

Eyelashes fluttered shut. Lips parted. Mouths pressed and moved together. Hearts burst wide open. And around them, around town, the faint, glowing pulse of true love rippled and shone. 

Gently, Emma pressed her forehead against the brunette’s and came up for air. 

Regina whimpered and her hands clung to the sides of the saviour’s face. She didn’t think she could let go if she wanted to. 

This kiss had to last her forever. 

It had to get her home. 

She needed to remember it when she woke up scared in the middle of the night. 

“Don’t let go,” Regina whispered. Her eyes were still closed. She didn’t want to wake up. 

“You know I won’t,” Emma reassured her, and her voice was honey. Her lips brushing over the soft skin of the brunette’s cheek. “You _knew_.”

Gently, Regina opened her eyes. 

Emma was still there, all around her and right against her. 

“I think I knew the moment you showed up on my porch.” Regina admitted at last, to herself as well as the other woman. She wound her arms around the blonde’s neck and looked up at her. “I think that’s why I fought you so hard.” 

“I think...” Emma’s nose bumped hers. 

She couldn’t find the words. It was still hard, heaving the words out from the very core of her. She’d spent so long pretending not to love her that now she didn’t know how to tell her that she did. 

The Saviour took a deep breath, and looked into the eyes of the woman who had been the Evil Queen. 

“I think I’ve known a long time, too.” Emma confessed. Her voice was hushed and reverent, like she was in a church or a cathedral. Somewhere holy and whole. She blinked her green eyes. “It was my destiny to kill you, but I couldn’t let you die. I couldn’t bear to see you hurt.” 

“Hey,” Regina drew her head back slightly. “It was your destiny to _try_ and kill me. Don’t assume you would have won.”

Emma smiled a long, slow smile that started somewhere between her ribs. “Oh, I would have won.”

Regina raised a dark eyebrow warningly. 

Emma tilted her head and kissed her again, firm and slow. Her hand was on the small of Regina’s back, and she pulled her against her even though she couldn’t get closer. Her mouth was warm and welcoming. When she pulled away, even Regina’s breath was trembling. 

“See?” Emma just grinned. “All I had to do was that.” 

She expected Regina to laugh, or sass her back, but instead the mayor’s soft hands tightened on the back of her neck and she pressed her mouth back up to hers. This kiss was different – messier, less perfect, more desperate. Emma’s lips moved in time with hers. Regina’s hands were fisting in her shirt now, she was climbing up her jacket, pressing herself closer and closer. 

“Regina,” Emma whispered, pulling back, even as Regina burrowed closer and her breath fell in warm puffs against the blonde’s skin. She swallowed hard. “Don’t think I’m a creep but...”

“But?” Regina said, and her voice was so soft and breathy, like Emma had never heard it before. 

“But do you think we should maybe go home?” Emma asked, even as she pulled Regina against her and peppered kisses against the her ear.

The purple smoke was around them before she could say anything else, and when it cleared they were standing on the porch where they’d met, all those years ago. 

Emma smiled when she saw, looking around the starlit garden and holding Regina in her arms. A cool breeze wound through her hair and soothed her flushed skin. Just round the corner of the house was the apple tree she’d attacked. Just in front of her was the path where she’d stood awkwardly and first glimpsed the most gorgeous woman she’d ever seen. 

Regina held onto her hand while she found her keys and unlocked the door with unsteady fingers. 

Inside, the foyer was flooded with warm light. Regina closed the door behind them, and the next thing she knew Emma turned her around and scooped her up into her arms - really, _scooped_. She was stronger than she expected her to be. There was nowhere for Regina to go but against her. 

Their mouths met at an off angle – lining things up neatly would have taken too long. It didn’t matter. Emma’s mouth pressed against Regina’s, gentle and firm, and Regina’s lips opened under hers, and when they started moving, giving and taking and pushing and gripping in tandem, Emma understood why every other kiss in her life had felt wrong. 

Kissing Regina felt like magic. Literally, like magic. With her heart pounding and her pulse sparking adrenaline. Like when they stood side by side before the roiling sea and moved the moon from it’s path through the Neverland sky. 

Emma’s arm wrapped tighter around Regina’s waist, her other hand snaking up to grip behind her neck. Kissing Regina made her hate herself for waiting so long. 

When they came up for air, their noses bumped again and it made Emma smile. They were still getting used to this. Regina could feel all ten of her fingers on her.

“Upstairs?” Emma whispered, and Regina could feel her breath on her lips. 

The purple smoke enfolded them once more, and when it cleared they were standing in the mayor’s pristine bedroom. 

Regina clung on to Emma’s jacket like something bad would happen if she let go. Then she tilted back her head to kiss her again, again, again, open-mouthed and desperate. She heard Emma groan against her and something in her chest came unhinged. 

When Emma felt Regina’s teeth nipping lightly along her lower lip, she couldn’t help herself. She held the brunette to her and pushed forward, walking them backwards to the bed. It hit the back of Regina’s knees. They wouldn’t let go of each other, so when Regina dropped back onto the mattress, Emma fell against her. 

Regina whimpered and her hands were going everywhere, trying to bring the saviour back against her, on top of her, as close as she could get. She wanted everything all at once. She wanted to make up for six years of wasted time. 

There was a moment, when Emma was hovering above her, one thumb gently stroking Regina’s cheek, the other resting on her hip, where everything became quiet in a deep, reverent way. In the dim light, she could see the blonde’s mouth slightly open, clearly waiting to say something 

Regina looked up into her eyes questioningly. 

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” Emma breathed into the dark. Her voice was softer and rougher than it had ever been before.

Regina reached up to brush a loose strand of blonde hair from her face. “With a woman?” 

“With you.” 

When Emma kissed her, it felt so good it left no room for the bad things. The tragedies that had fallen against her as quick and easy as dominoes seemed to melt away, like mist in the morning sun.

When Emma kissed her, it felt better than anything had ever hurt.


End file.
